William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

dribbling as it was now. Would it fill the bottom? Enough to drown them? Of course it would! Who could swim in a crevasse like that, with freezing water coming down on top of you?
    “That’s a sewer,” he said quietly, standing close to her. “The sewers o’ London takes everythin’, all the waste from all the ’ouses an’ middens in the ’ole city, an’ from the sinks an’ gutters an’ overflows everywhere. If yer a tosher or a ganger, yer know the tides an’ all the rivers an’ springs, an’ keep an eye ter the rain, ’cos if yer don’t, yer’ll not last long. An’ o’ course there’s the rats. Never go underground alone. Slip and fall, an’ the rats’ll ’ave yer. Strip a man ter the bone if yer unlucky an’ fetch up where they can reach yer. ’Undreds o’ thousands o’ ’em down there, there are.”
    Snoot had pricked up his ears at the word
rats.
    Hester said nothing.
    “An’ there’s the gas,” Sutton added.
    “Is that what that pipe is?” she asked, gesturing to the one that crossed the deep gash in the earth about fifteen feet down, going diagonally on a quite different track from the cutting.
    Sutton smiled. “No, Miss ’Ester, that’s gas fer lights an’ things in there. I’m talkin’ about the sort o’ gas that collects up under the ground ’cos o’ wot sewers is for carryin’. Gives off methane, it does, an’ if the air or water don’t carry it away, it’s enough ter suffocate a man. Or if some fool lights a spark, with a tinder or a steel boot on stone, then whoomph!” He jerked his hands apart violently, fingers spread to indicate an explosion. “Or there’s the choke-damp wot yer gets in coal mines an’ the like. That’ll kill yer, too.”
    Again she said nothing, trying to imagine what it would be like to have no skill except one that obliged you to labor in such conditions. And yet she had known navvies before, in the Crimea, and a braver, harder-working group of men she had never seen. They had built a railway for the soldiers across wild, almost uncharted terrain, in the depth of winter, in a time most others had considered totally outside any possibility. And an excellent railway it was, too. But that had been aboveground.
    The great steam engine was still pounding away, shaking the earth with its strength, hauling as men and beasts never could. Foot by foot were forming the sewers that would make London clean, safe from the epidemics of typhoid and cholera that had carried away so many in appalling deaths.
    “It’s that damn great thing wot worries me,” Sutton said, staring at the steam engine. “There’s other ones like that, even bigger, wot I can’t show yer, ’cos o’ where they are. Everyone’s in an ’urry an’ they in’t takin’ care like they should. A wheel gets away from yer, chain breaks loose on one o’ them things, an’ before yer knows it, a man’s arm’s ripped out, or a beam o’ wood’s broke wot’s ’oldin’ up ’alf the roof o’ somethin’.”
    “They’re in a hurry because of the threat of typhoid and cholera such as we had in the Great Stink,” she said quietly.
    “I know. But ’cos they’re tryin’ ter beat each other an’ get the next order, too,” he added. “An’ no one says nothin’ ’cos they don’t want ter lose their jobs, or ’ave other folks think they’re scared.”
    “And are they scared?”
    “Course they are.” He looked at her ruefully. “Yer must be froze. I’ll take yer to see someone not a mile from ’ere oo’ll give us a decent cup o’ tea. C’mon.” And without waiting for her to accept, or possibly not, he turned and began walking back from the crevasse the way they had come, through the rubble and piles of timber, much of it rotted. As always, the little dog was beside him, jumping over the stones, his tail wagging.
    Hester followed after him, having to hurry to catch up. She did not resent his pace; she knew it came from the emotion driving him, the fear that a tragedy might occur before he could do anything to stop even the smallest part of it.
    They did not talk in the half hour it took them to weave their way through the narrow streets and alleys, but it was a companionable silence. He was very careful to keep step with her and now and then to warn her of a particularly rough or slippery stretch of road or of the steepness of the step up to an occasional pavement.
    She wondered if this was where he had grown up. During the brief space they had